He grimaced at her apologetically.
‘But – Michael! That’s ridiculous! I know they didn’t get on, but going to the police? Accusing Nick? Why would you do that?’ Her legs were suddenly shaky. She sat down abruptly on the edge of a raised bed.
Michael looked back off towards the farmhouse, his ruddy, usually cheery farmer’s face drawn and ill-looking. ‘Yvonne sussed him long ago. She was convinced he killed Kathleen.’
For a moment, Lulu couldn’t think who Kathleen was – a dog or a cat maybe? – until it hit her like a sledgehammer.
Kathleen was Nick’s mother.
‘Oh my God.’
‘I’m dubious about that myself, but what I do know is that he tried to kill Isla. His baby sister. Pushed her pram down the drive towards the road when a timber lorry was passing. Duncan happened to be there and was able to grab the pram before it got to the road, but it was a near thing. He got off with it, of course. Pretended he tripped.’
‘But – surely he did! He wouldn’t have –’
‘I heard him myself, admitting to Duncan and Maggie that he’d pushed the pram – but only after Duncan remained firm in his conviction that he’d seen Nick do it. Nick changed his story, tried to claim he was just messing around and didn’t realise the danger.’
‘But that must have been true! Teenagers often aren’t aware of danger –’
‘Oh, he was aware of it, all right. There was also suspicion he could have killed one of the delinquent kids at The Phoenix Centre, where Duncan worked. But he had a cast-iron alibi, supplied by his friend Andy.’ He lowered his voice to an urgent whisper, eyes darting, as if expecting Nick to suddenly spring out at them from behind the beans. ‘And it seems he’s set himself up with an alibi again, for Yvonne. The police say they’ve “looked into” the possibility of Nick’s “involvement” and are satisfied he was working at the crucial time. They checked with the City firm he works for, and apparently he was trading and calling clients from just after Yvonne set out for her walk at quarter to three until four-thirty. She was already overdue back by then, and I went out looking for her not long afterwards and found her car – so that’s him covered, apparently.’ Eyes bright with tears, he shook his head, as if angry with himself for not holding it together.
‘It’s true,’ Lulu said urgently. ‘He was working in the study. I got the call from you as I arrived home, and he was there. You’ve got it all wrong, Michael. How could you think that Nick . . . I mean, my God!’
‘But what if he wasn’t in the study at the crucial time? What if he was on the move and trading on his phone rather than a laptop in the study or whatever? I’ve told the police they should check the movements of his phone, but I doubt that they will. They think I’ve lost it.’
‘Nick would never hurt Yvonne,’ Lulu insisted.
Michael was crushing the spinach in his hand. ‘I wish I was wrong, Lulu. I really wish I was, and Yvonne’s maybe just taken a tumble and is wandering, disorientated, out there somewhere. But I know that’s not what’s happened. Nick arrives back here for the first time in over ten years, and a week later Yvonne disappears. Don’t tell me that’s a coincidence.’ His voice cracked. ‘You need to get away from him.’ He grabbed her arm. ‘You need to get far, far away from him. Go back to your farm in Australia. Back where there are people who can protect you.’
‘Michael, this is all nonsense.’ She tried to make her voice calm and gentle, but she was disturbed to find that she couldn’t, that it was high and squeaky and breathless. ‘You’re talking like Nick –’
‘Like he’s a psychopath? That’s because he is.’ He took the leaves she’d picked from her hand. ‘And you know, it’s more than I can stomach, breaking bread with him. Please just go. Take Nick and go.’
Back at Sunnyside, Lulu kept building herself up to tell Nick what Michael had said, but she couldn’t do it to him, just as she couldn’t tell him about Andy’s accusations. Had Andy and Yvonne been feeding off each other’s paranoia about Nick? And now Michael had been sucked into the ridiculous conspiracy theories they’d dreamt up?
She’d told Nick that Michael was tired and wasn’t hungry and they needed to leave.
As she lay, sleepless as usual, in bed, she was very conscious of the warmth of Nick’s body next to her. How long would it be before Michael flung his accusations at Nick himself? Just how much more could Nick take?
Well, but maybe there was a way to make Michael see sense.
She eased out of bed and crept to the door.
Downstairs, she flicked on the light in the study, wincing at the sudden brightness. Their phones were charging in here on the windowsill. She hesitated only a moment before picking Nick’s up and tapping in his code – the year and month of their marriage – and opening up the trading app he had once shown her. It took a while to find the history log, which showed the dates and times of trades made from the phone, but once she was in the right place, it took seconds to find that no trades had been made from this phone on the day of Yvonne’s disappearance. That meant he’d been using his laptop.
This was proof positive that Michael’s suspicion that Nick could have used his phone to make trades on the afternoon of Yvonne’s disappearance, in between whatever Michael thought he’d been doing to Yvonne, was completely baseless. She picked up her own phone, switched it on and waited impatiently for it to boot up. Then she took a photo of Nick’s screen showing trades a couple of weeks ago, but nothing since.
Hopefully, this would set Michael’s mind at rest.
She was turning Nick’s phone off when a text came in from someone called Ben Sinclair.
Sorry to hassle, I know you’re on holiday, but need to sell half my holdings in DGK when the LSE opens tomorrow first thing. Not sure if this is the right number for you – will try the other one too. Thanks, Nick.